Trombone Shorty + Tank & The Bangas
Cain’s Ballroom
March 18, 2025
If not quite a sister city to New Orleans, Tulsa certainly shares a kinship with it.
Our famous “Tulsa Sound” saw artists walking a tightrope between New Orleans blues and swamp pop. Today, King Cabbage Brass Band’s NOLA marching jazz regularly packs local venues and blesses Zach Bryan’s touring shows. Poppa Foster and his crew perform consistent Allen Toussaint tributes across town. The Crescent City’s culinary gifts have swum up river to us with NOLA’s Creole and Cocktails, Lassalle’s French Market and Farm, and T-Johnny’s Seafood and Cajun Market, a 30 minute trip southeast in Coweta. Even our sacred town holiday, Cry Baby Hill, mirrors the braless lawlessness of Mardi Gras.
So it’s no surprise that a sold-out crowd greeted NOLA royalty Trombone Shorty and fellow NOLA powerhouse Tank & The Bangas when they pulled into Cain’s Ballroom for a one-night-only appearance in Tulsa last week.
Tank & The Bangas went viral in 2017 for their landmark NPR Tiny Desk Concert performance, and their star has only continued to rise. The first thing I noticed as they opened the show was the commanding presence of lead vocalist Tarriona "Tank" Ball. She flitted between spoken word, rap, and golden-throated singing while holding a Napoleonic grip on her ensemble. Journalists love to describe Tank’s demeanor as “childlike,” but there’s an ominous quality about her too—a “she’s having a blast but I pray I never make this woman mad” vibe that lets her control the crowd and deftly steer the kinetics of her band.
As for that band, my first thought was “good god, can this man DRUM.” The Bangas’ drummer is a master of linear gospel drum fills, layering concussive rigidity on top of flowing rhythms. Each of the players—from keys and guitar to horns and backup vocals—was lockstep in that tight yet fluid exchange. Trafficking mainly in funk and soul, the group also has tinges of ‘70s prog rock in its technical acrobatics and Emerson, Yes, and Crimson histrionics.
Trombone Shorty and crew took the stage to an uproarious applause they’ve earned through the years and kept ownership of throughout the evening. Shorty (government name Troy Andrews) is a multi-instrumentalist who predominantly commands his band with the horn in his moniker. He’s become one of the most recognizable names in New Orleans funk, jazz, soul, and R&B fusion with appearances across myriad stages and in shows like The Simpsons. I’m not so good at picking out standards, so I’ll just have to say the first song was “Stevie Wonder-esque,” a funky and celebratory announcement of the group’s arrival that also served up the first moment where Shorty showed why Trombone is in his name.
Shorty plays the horn nasty and demonic, like he’s wrangling Goetic spirits and casting them down. I knew the third song was “Let’s Go Crazy" by Prince, and the audience followed the instructions. (The band also covered Limp Bizkit.) A standout moment came when Shorty whipped out a trumpet and ripped a long, single note, a move that’s become a signature for him. It was maybe a three-minute note … maybe five? Regardless of factuality, it was understood by all to be insane, and the crowd’s response was a perfect instance of the pure joy I felt in the room throughout the night.
After announcing that she and her band had recently won their first Grammy, Tank told the crowd, “I hope whatever you devote your life to makes you feel like this.” From herculean trumpet rips to the bouncing wonder of Tank and her bangers, this New Orleans / Tulsa connection highlighted the power of humanity’s strongest universalities: food, music, dance, and connection itself. In a world currently defined in measures of cruelty, Cain’s on this night contained only cheer.
